Latest news with #LovestruckBooks
Boston Globe
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Where to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day in Greater Boston
So if you're wondering where to begin celebrating this tight-knit community, here is a guide to Independent Bookstore Day celebrations happening in Greater Boston. Lovestruck Books Advertisement Shelves of books at Lovestruck Books. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Lovestruck Books, the romance bookstore and café-and-wine bar in Harvard Squard, will spend Indie Bookstore Day inaugurating its outdoor patio. The store 44 Brattle St., Cambridge. Papercuts Bookshop Papercuts Bookshop owner Kate Layte, stands outside the Jamaica Plain locale. Issac Fitz At Papercuts Bookshop, the IBD celebration will be extra sweet with free slices of gluten-free coconut-pineapple cake courtesy of residential bakery 60 South St., Jamaica Plain. Advertisement Side Quest Books & Games Side Quest Books & Games is an indie fantasy bookstore in Bow Market. The store will celebrate Independent Bookstore Day this Saturday at its Somerville location. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff All things fantastical can be found at Side Quest Books & Games, but its commitment to showcasing the underrepresented is entirely nonfiction. The Somerville shop will be debuting new swag displaying graphics commissioned by local artists. Other items customers can snag to rep their bookworm ways include Indie Bookstore totes and stickers — the latter of which will be given out for free with every purchase. 1 Bow Market Way, Somerville. Porter Square Books Porter Square Books in Cambridge handout Porter Square Books is more than just its two retail locations in Cambridge and Boston's Seaport neighborhood. The retailer's foundation of the same name works to make reading more accessible within the Cambridge community through sponsored visits by authors to local schools and book donations. To support their efforts on IBD, PSB will be holding a Stuffed Animal Portrait Fund-raiser at its Cambridge location, during which attendees can bring their favorite cotton-brain friend to get their portrait drawn by professional illustrators. Later in the day, PSB employees will partake in a bake-off, where the 'Undisputed Baking Champion of the Year' will be determined by the audience's taste buds. 1815 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. Read My Lips Boston Twin sisters Lily (left) and Hannah Barrett will be organizing an Independent Bookstore Day celebration in Malden. JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE For romance readers, Read My Lips has a bit of everything. From raunch-filled pages you hide in public to sweet tropes that have you kicking your feet, they carry it. Therefore, it's only fair that things get a bit hot and heavy during the IBD event. The pop-up bookstore will be setting customers up on blind dates with books at Idle Hands Craft Ales, where readers may find a $25 gift card lying seductively between the pages. The romance pop-up will also be donating 10 percent of the profit from book-themed merch to the pop-up's nonprofit of the month, the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. 89 Commercial St., Malden. Advertisement The Purple Couch Bookshop Purple Couch is fittingly decorated with colorful furniture at its North Andover location. The Purple Couch Bookshop North Andover's Purple Couch Bookshop is taking Independent Bookstore Day a step further by making its celebration a two-day event, extending to Sunday. Throughout the weekend, customers can play a game of banned books bingo, take a peek around with the little ones for a kids' scavenger hunt, or go on blind book dates. On Saturday and Sunday night, the store will remain open until late and provide light refreshments for celebrating customers. 350 Winthrop Ave. Unit 9B, North Andover. Boujee Bookstore Located in Norwood, Boujee Bookstore will spend Indie Bookstore Day in the company of various New England-based authors. Boujee Bookstore The vibes at Boujee Bookstore are typically light, fun, and girly, and so are its Independent Bookstore Day activities. Customers (21+) can snag a free cocktail or fill a bag at the all-pink candy bar while browsing the store's tidily shelved titles. Alongside other bibliophiles, customers can spend time with eightindie fantasy authors, including Amanda Sinatra and Allie Maddox, to get their books signed by locally-based writers. 61 Endicott St., Norwood. Marianna Orozco can be reached at
Axios
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Things to do in the Boston area this week: 2/24-3/2
Monday, 2/24 Bow Market hosts a crochet workshop for beginners in the market's suite, 7-9pm. Price: $50, includes yarn and crochet hooks. Tuesday, 2/25 The Boston Public Library's Special Collections in Copley Square will highlight items from revolutionary Black Artists, 2-4pm. Bestselling author Tia Williams discusses her modern fairytale "A Love Song for Ricki Wilde" with content creator Azanta at Lovestruck Books, 7-9pm. Price: $30, includes signed book. Wednesday, 2/26 The Fenway Community Center screens"Six Triple Eight," 6-8pm. Thursday, 2/27 Finnish folk metal bands Korpiklaani and Ensiferum stop at Brighton Music Hall as part of their "Folkfest of the North" tour. The tour features Taiwanese folk metal artist NiNi Music. The Liberty Hotel hosts Nigel Barker of "America's Next Top Model" for a night of fashion, cocktails and celebrity spottings, 7:30pm. Friday, 2/28 The Baltic Film Festival returns with films from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, 4:30pm. It runs until Sunday night. Price: $15 per film; $5 for Emerson students. The Alamo Drafthouse is showing our favorite ogre with layers like onions, "Shrek," 9:30pm. Saturday, 3/1 Try puppy yoga at Park-9 Dog Bar in Everett, 9:45am-12pm. Price: $56. Some of the proceeds go to Sweet Paws Rescue. Bring your own mat. Sunday, 3/2 Trident Booksellers & Cafe hosts an Oscars watch party in its upstairs cafe, 7pm. Night Shift Brewing in Everett hosts metal yoga. Price: $30, includes a beer or non-alcoholic drink. Bring your own mat.
Axios
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Boston-area bookstores to visit
Boston has seen a bookstore "boomlet" in recent years, says Beth Ineson of the New England Independent Booksellers Association. The intrigue: The region is home to bookstores that cater to nerds, romantics, cat lovers and all sorts of hobbyists who enjoy reading. Bookstores with cafes A Sanctuary Cafe: Seating is limited in this cat cafe that sells books, but their pastries are worth the wait. Beacon Hill Books & Cafe: Stop in for tea time and grab a book on Beacon Hill. Just Bookish: A bookstore in Fields Corner with a small cafe. Protip: Order an empanada. Lovestruck Books: A romance-themed bookstore in Harvard Square with George Howell, serving coffee, treats and wine. Trident Booksellers & Cafe: Back Bay's 40-year-old bookstore and cafe. The cafe serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as booze. Porter Square Books: The Cambridge bookstore recently expanded, moving into a larger space owned by Lesley University. The bookstore has a coffee shop, Page & Leaf Cafe. There's also a Porter Square Books in Boston's Seaport neighborhood, but no cafe. Specialty bookstores All She Wrote Books: The intersectional feminist queer bookstore in Somerville grew out of a pop-up, which first launched in 2019. Pandemonium Books and Games: This Central Square game store sells science fiction, fantasy, horror and other books. The store also hosts events, from beginner D&D sessions to Yu-Gi-Oh! weekly tournaments. Read My Lips: The diverse, romance pop-up bookstore sets up shop at breweries and other public-facing spaces, from the Charles River Speedway to Lovestruck Books. Side Quest Games & Books: What began as a pop-up is now a brick-and-mortar in Bow Market that sells indie games and a range of fantasy and sci fi books. Side Quest often hosts role-playing game events and book clubs. Other brick-and-mortars Brattle Book Shop: This Boston bookstore celebrates 200 years in 2025. Brattle carries used books, rare books, maps, prints, postcards and other items. Brookline Booksmith: Coolidge Corner's beloved independent bookstore. The bookstore has a used books collection and a section for gifts and accessories (great for holiday shopping). Bryn Mawr Bookstore: Cambridge's nonprofit bookstore has been around since 1971 and carries more than 30,000 books. Commonwealth Books: This Downtown Crossing spot carries books on arts, history, architecture, philosophy and other subjects, as well as antique prints and maps. The COOP: This cooperative bookstore serves the Harvard and MIT communities but is open to all. Locals also stop in to use their bathrooms. East End Books Boston: This Seaport shop is the sister store to the original East End Books in Provincetown. Frugal Bookstore: The Nubian Square shop sells a range of books, from children's titles to science fiction, graphic novels and African American studies. Harvard Book Store: The Harvard Square staple has been independently run for nearly a century. The business planned to open a section location in Boston's Prudential Center, but they halted the expansion. More Than Words: More Than Words, a nonprofit serving youth, sells books, clothing and gifts in its South End store. More Than Words opened a shop in Central Square recently, taking over the space once owned by Boomerangs. Over The Tunnel Books: Consider this more of a book nook than a store, but the basement bookstore below EBO & Co. Grocery has seats to peruse their collection. Papercuts Bookstore: This Jamaica Plain bookstore carries various genres of books and hosts author events. Parkside Bookshop: This South End bookstore also hosts book clubs, date nights and food pop-ups. Rodney's Bookstore: Rodney's is a beloved Harvard Square bookstore that sells used books and prints. Rozzie Bound: This Roslindale cooperative bookstore has a small, but diverse collection of books in terms of subject matter, race and gender. Customers often order books to have shipped directly to Rozzie Bound.
Boston Globe
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Love in the time of MAGA bros: Why women are craving romance novels
There, seeking escape from reality, and also encouragement, empowerment, and companionship, were shoppers who were almost uniformly so enthusiastic they seemed like extras in a romcom hoping to be discovered. Advertisement But their smiles didn't tell the whole story. In fact, often, they concealed it. Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up Jaclyn Nee, a single 28-year-old speech therapist, was browsing with a friend in 'contemporary romance.' It's a sub-genre where, increasingly, women find love later in life (which, in romance novels, means in their 30s, but, hey, it's progress). Nee worries she lost But, she said, a particular type of romance novel can make her feel better. 'I like stories where things don't always go according to plan.' 'Why?' she was asked. Nee and her friend exchanged a glance and burst into laughter. 'Ask my therapist!' she said. A few clusters of pals away, Lauren Parker, a lingerie-store worker, admitted she used to tease friends who read romance novels. But now she's crossed over, almost out of necessity. 'Guys in the real world don't want to date, don't want you to be their girlfriend,' she said. 'But the men in these books, they're your dream man.' Wait! Let's step back a moment. Someone had the chutzpah to open a romance-book store in Harvard Square, the intellectual capital of the world? And not only that, but one that flaunts its existence with a magnificent canopy of faux flowers over the entrance and brims with attitude-y merch? 'my type is fictional,' baseball caps proclaim. 'Men to Avoid in Art and Life' are the wall calendars for sale. Advertisement What about the stigma that romance novels have always had? Are people sneaking in through a back door? No, said owner Some of the books and items for sale at Lovestruck Books. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff But as far as the question of whether the shame is gone — of people no longer deriding the books as lowbrow, girly, poorly written — the answer is kind of yes and kind of no. On one hand, romance has earned respect, grudging though it may be, by its whopper sales. In January, ' Lovestruck itself is a sign of the change. In the past few years, the number of romance bookstores in the country has multiplied, and the names alone tell you no one's hiding. There's Advertisement How did this happen? The pandemic-era emergence of #BookTok, where readers and Malden-based Instagram account, @readmylipsboston, has hosted pop-up book shops featuring romance titles vetted for diversity and representation. Provided Indeed, there are 4.4 million posts on TikTok using #RomanceBooks, according to TikTok, with a 70 percent increase in posts between 2023 and 2024. Along the way, the books themselves have changed. The 'happily ever after' ending is still a must, Kanter, the Lovestruck owner said, but now love can be part of a woman's life, not the only thing. And today, not only is the act of reading a romance novel being positioned as 'self care' by some publishers, there is a sub-genre for everyone. LGBTQ romance, sports romance, dark romance, fantasy romance, historical romance, reverse harem romance. And within each category, more categories. Rachel Kanter got Lovestruck Books ready for opening last December. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Crucially, said Kanter, the novels often center characters who have disabilities, And yet, despite the gains, because the books are written primarily by women for women, there will always be a stigma, said Advertisement 'Anything that girls and women love' — like pumpkin spice latte, she said, or the Twilight series — 'a lot of people want to make fun of it or denigrate it.' Perhaps the status, or lack thereof, was best captured by a Harvard Business School student shopping at Lovestruck over the weekend. When classmates asked what she did over break, she'd say, 'A lot of reading.' But, she told a reporter, she would 'hedge' and not immediately reveal what she was reading ('Iron Flame' and 'Onyx Storm'). But when she did, it turned out others were, too. And her name? She preferred to remain anonymous. Rachel Kanter of Lovestruck Books. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff Beth Teitell can be reached at
New York Times
28-01-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Indie Bookstores Will Soon Be Able to Sell E-Books to Customers
When Andy Hunter started Bookshop in 2020, his goal was to build an online bookstore that served as an indie alternative to Amazon. Five years later, more than 2,200 independent bookstores sell books through the site, which has generated more than $35 million in profit for participating stores. But Bookshop didn't sell e-books, leaving member stores shut out of a lucrative format. Bookshop is now aiming to change that, too. On Tuesday, the online bookstore started selling e-books on their site and launched an app that allows customers to read digital books purchased from Bookshop or from independent stores. Bookstores will be able to sell digital books directly from their own websites, and when customers buy e-books through Bookshop and select a store to support, all profits from digital sales will go to stores, Hunter said. To start, Bookshop's website will have more than a million digital books on offer. Later this year, Bookshop plans to add books by self-published authors and more independent publishers. 'Independent bookstores have been looking for ways to compete in the e-book space,' said Rachel Kanter, the owner of Lovestruck Books, a romance bookstore in Boston. 'It's really a godsend.' Ever since Amazon introduced its Kindle e-reading device in 2007, the e-commerce giant has dominated the market for digital books. Other companies made some inroads, including Kobo and Barnes & Noble with its Nook e-reader. But most independent bookstores simply ceded the e-book market to the retail giant. A 2023 survey of independent bookstores found that just 18 percent sold e-books, according to the American Booksellers Association. Siphoning e-book sales away from Amazon will be difficult. The company created a seamless ecosystem with its Kindle and app. Its e-book subscription service allows readers to consume unlimited books for about $12 a month. Digital book sales haven't overtaken print, as many in the book business once feared. But for many readers, especially heavy readers in genres like romance and thrillers, digital books are more convenient, and often less expensive. Publishers' revenues from e-book sales totaled some $945 million in the first 11 months of 2024, and e-books accounted for 11 percent of those revenues, according to the Association of American Publishers. By comparison, sales of physical books, including paperback and hardcover, accounted for $6.5 billion in revenue for the first 11 months, and made up 75 percent of the market in that time period. Lea Bickerton, owner of the Tiny Bookstore, a 270-square-foot store in Pittsburgh, said she hopes Bookshop's addition of e-books will appeal to customers who like reading digitally, but want to support her small store rather than a behemoth like Amazon. 'With our current political environment, I suspect there are going to be more people who want to pivot out of the Amazon ecosystem,' she said. 'There's a window of opportunity to make this market competitive again.' Bookshop took off during the pandemic. Many stores had to close during quarantine, and online sales through Bookshop provided them with a lifeline. Even after retailers reopened, many bookstore owners found it convenient to sell through Bookshop, which handles the inventory and shipping through Ingram, a major book distributor. The site has proved popular with booksellers: Out of the 2,433 stores that the American Booksellers Association counted as members in 2024, around 90 percent use Bookshop. Bookstores see lower profits when they sell print books through the site — 30 percent of a book's list price, compared with roughly 40 percent they get selling directly to customers — but don't have to manage inventory or pay for shipping. For print books that are sold directly by Bookshop, 10 percent of the list price goes into a pool that gets distributed to independent bookstores. When customers buy e-books from Bookshop without identifying a particular bookstore, 30 percent will go into the shared profit pool for stores and the rest will go toward funding Bookshop's operations. Hunter said he's wanted to add e-books to Bookshop from the beginning. Independent bookstores already had a way to sell digital audiobooks, through but no one had found a good solution for digital books. 'Up until now, customers had to go to Amazon or Kobo or some other place,' Hunter said. 'They had no easy way to buy e-books from an independent bookstore.' He began tackling the problem in 2022. But first, he had to raise money for the initiative, and then get major publishers on board, which required passing encryption security tests to prove that Bookshop was secure and wasn't vulnerable to digital piracy. Hunter's initial goal is to launch with 'a minimum viable product' and develop a customer base. At launch time, customers will be able to read e-books from Bookshop on their web browser and on iPhone and Android apps. Later, he'd like to add other features, like a subscription service, he said. Once e-book sales are working seamlessly, Hunter has other ambitions, including building an alternative to Goodreads, the book review site owned by Amazon. 'That's still on my to-do list,' he said.
